"Hello?" I answered the phone groggily, since it was 2:30 in the morning. People should know not to call me between midnight and 5:30, at least.
"Éponine? It's Grantaire." I shot up in bed. Henri Grantaire is someone who knows. Whatever he's calling about must be really serious.
"R, what is it?" I asked, urgently, completely awake now.
"It's Enjolras, Éponine. Can you meet me at the top of the hill? Come quick. Bring your car." Then the line went dead. I was already out of bed, pulling on a hoodie, sweats, and shoes. I grabbed my keys and raced out to my car. I sped through campus to the place Grantaire indicated. The hill was a street with a ton of restaurants, specifically bars. It was a Friday night, so I knew I was walking into trouble, but R wouldn't have called me unless it was an emergency, and if Enjolras was in trouble, I needed to be there to help out.
I parked on the street and jumped out of the car, seeing three people huddled on the corner. "R!" I yelled to the man who had called me. His face looked up from the person on the ground. He waved frantically at me, and I ran to them.
"Éponine! Thank you for coming. He's not doing so well…" R said. I saw Antoine Courfeyrac on the other side of Gabriel Enjolras, one of my best friends.
"Enjolras, wake up! Enjolras, please respond. Look at me!" I yelled to the man, crouching down to be closer to him. "What happened?" I shouted, looking up at the other two men.
"Well, we were at Ginger's-" Courfeyrac started.
"WHAT?! Why the HELL was Gabriel Enjolras at Ginger's?" I yelled at him. Ginger's was a bar. "Why is he laying unconscious on the sidewalk? Who made him drink, because I know he didn't do it of his own free will." I said. "Help me get him up. We are taking him to the car, and you two will explain while I drive back to my house." The men did as I told them, fear in their eyes. When we got to my car, we laid him in back seat. Grantaire climbed in with him, laying Enjolras' head on his own lap. Courfeyrac slid into the passenger seat as I started the car.
"Now, please explain. Why is Enjolras drunk, unconscious, and in my car?" I said calmly, pulling back out onto the street, towards my house. I looked in the rearview mirror at Grantaire, but he had his head down.
Courfeyrac spoke up. "This is kind of hypocritical, isn't it? You go out partying all the time and end up at his house drunk off your ass. Normally, you ask him to come with you. Why is it different now that the roles are switched?" He said.
I turned my head to glare at him. "Because, Antoine. You are correct. It's normal for me to be drunk off my ass. It is not normal for that man to be. After all the times I asked him to go to parties with me, he always told me he would never touch alcohol because he hated not being in control. It became a joke between us. He was never supposed to actually go out! He is supposed to stay home, reading, writing speeches, planning. I just don't understand."
"It's because of you, okay? He called me earlier, after classes got out, and asked if I would go drinking with him tonight. He said he saw you and Montparnasse in an alley. He couldn't handle it. He wanted to forget. I agreed, thinking I could monitor him, and asked Courf to come with us. I guess I lost track of the amount he bought, and then he was falling all over me. I grabbed Courf, and we got him out of there. I called you. I'm sorry, Éponine."
"Mmmm, ugggh." I stopped at a red light and turned around to look at Enjolras.
"Enjolras! Enjolras, wake up for me, please. Say something!" I said to him.
"My- myhe, my head." He said, trying to sit up. Grantaire kept him down.
"Enj, look at me. Look at me, please." I said.
"Ép? Where am I?" He said. I could see his eyes, in the rearview mirror, trying to find me. He was slowly regaining conciousness.
"It's me, Gabe. We are in my car. Your head is on Grantaire. Courfeyrac is in the front with me. We are almost to my house." I said.
"Oh. Hi, R. Hi Courf." He said.
"Gabe, please. Please, keep talking to me. Can you try and stay awake for me?" I asked him.
"I can try. What do you want me to say?" He said.
"Anything. Just don't stop talking." I told him.
"Hmm, are you sure you're Éponine? Normally Ép would try and get me to shut up…" He said.
"Gabriel Enjolras, are you really trying to make a joke right now?" I asked him.
"Mmmm." He said, starting to fall back asleep.
"Recite the Gettysburg Address." Grantaire told him.
"Four-score and seven years ago-" Enjolras did as told. I pulled into the driveway. I parked and turned off the car as Courfeyrac got out and went around to help Grantaire get Enjolras out. They got him out, but when they tried to get him to walk on his own, he just fell. They caught him and practically carried him into my house. I told them to go put him on my bed. Meanwhile, I got a glass and some water for him.
When I went back in, I told the boys that I could handle Enjolras. "Are you sure you don't need us?" R asked.
"Yeah. Courf, are you okay to drive?" He nodded, and I handed him my keys, with a stern warning of what would happen if he crashed it. As the two men left my house, I tried to get Enjolras to drink some water. After he drank the first glass, I went into my master bathroom to fill it up again. I heard a crash from my room. I put the glass on the counter and rushed into the bedroom. Enjolras was on the ground. I quickly helped him up. "Gabe! What are you doing?" I yelled at him. He just looked up at me, terror evident in his eyes, and covered his mouth. I understood and helped him into the bathroom. I set him on the floor close to the toilet. He put his face over the bowl, and I tried to pull as many of his curls out of his face. I rubbed circles into his back, like he normally did for me when I called him to pick me up after one of my party nights. He rested his forehead on the cool porcelain, but when he closed his eyes, I yanked on the curls that were still in my hand.
"Oww! What the fuck, Éponine?" He asked me.
"You have to stay awake! Are you done hurling, or should we stay in here a little longer?" He shook his head, but his body answered my question as he turned his head to the bowl again. After he was done this time, I took the glass of the counter so he could rinse his mouth out. After he spit into the bowl again, I reached around him to flush it.
"Why didn't you tell me you were upset? Or at least told me you were going to deal with your emotions by drinking. I would have come with you, or not let you go at all." I asked him, still rubbing circles into his back. He still had his head rested on the toilet.
"I don't know, Ép. I don't know why seeing you and Montparnasse upset me so much. It shouldn't have. I don't know why I decided to go drinking. I feel horrible. I hurt all over. Never let me do that ever again." He said.
"I won't. I wouldn't have tonight, if you would have just told me. I thought you were hanging out with Combeferre?" I told him.
"That was a cover. I told him that if you asked, he was to tell you I was there, but he knew I was actually with Grantaire and Courfeyrac."
"And he let you? He should have known better…" I said. Maurice Combeferre was Enjolras' best friend since kindergarten, or something like that. He should have known nothing good would come from letting Enjolras go to a bar with R and Courf.
"He tried to fight me on it, but I yelled at him. I made him really mad, Ép. He's going to be so mad at me when he finds out wha-" Enjolras turned his head, for the third time, and threw up what looked like most of his insides.
I rubbed his back more, while whispering into his hair. "Shh, calm down, Gabe. It's okay. I'm right here. I love you. Just breathe, everything will be alright. You'll-"
He finished throwing up and turned to look at me. He really did look horrible, but he was still the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. "What did you just say?" He asked me.
I hesitated before saying, "Just breathe, everything will be alright?" knowing that's not what he wanted to hear.
He shook his head. Éponine Hillaire Jondrette-Thenardier, we are not doing this right now. You know what I meant. What. Did. You. Say."
I looked him dead in the eyes. "Gabriel Julien Enjolras, I am in love with you." He took a swig of water, spit into the toilet again, and turned back to me.
"Well then. Why the hell did it take me getting drunk off my ass to reach this point?" He said, before gripping the back of my neck and pulling my lips to his. It was a sweet, gentle, simple kiss, since he had just thrown up three times and we were still sitting on floor in my bathroom, but Gabriel Enjolras just kissed me!
After we pulled back, I just gaped at him, my mouth open. "Shut your beautiful mouth, you'll catch flies." He said, smirking at me. I did as he told me, but still just sat there looking at him. "Go back to your room. I'll come in a few minutes." Once again, I did as I was told. I slipped off my shoes and sweatpants before slipping into the bed. I laid there, happy. He kissed me! And I kissed him back! And then he was walking into my bedroom, towards my bed. He climbed on top of my and leaned down to me. Right before his lips met mine, I could smell the wonderful peppermint on his breath. He must have brushed his teeth using the things he left here for when he had to spend the night to take care of me.
We kissed for a while, before he said, "Éponine Jondrette, where have you been all my life?" I kissed him again before responding.
"Right here, next to you. Where I was meant to be," in an unintentionally breathy voice. We kept kissing, but when it started to get heated, he stopped.
"What? Did I do something wrong?" I asked him, knowing I didn't. I could feel him against my leg, and his body definitely didn't think I was doing something wrong.
"No, Ép. You didn't do anything. I just… I still have a lot of alcohol in my system, and so much has happened tonight-" I kissed him again, just quickly, to make him shut up.
"I understand. Will you at least stay with me tonight? I want to make sure you are okay. You are going to have a killer morning." I told him.
He nodded and pulled off his shirt before sliding into the bed behind me. He wrapped his arms around my waist, and we both fell asleep.
So I just wrote this last night about two other people I know. This didn't actually happen, it was just a story. But as I was writing it, I thought this would be a great Enjonine story. And thus became my first complete Les Mis story. I'm not sure if I like this ending, so there might be another chapter put up sometime, but for now I'm marking it as complete. The people this was originally written about are featured in a story I just uploaded to WattPad and called They Were Best Friends. It's a cute little story. I just got back into writing and have another Max Ride story in the making as well as a chaptered Enjonine story. Thanks for reading!
-Fluobophone